Well, when you add lots of milk the temperature will drop.
The better way to go is to heat the milk briefly in the microwave so the finished coffee drink remains hot.
We have had various Mr. Coffee's for years and have no complaint. I think this is one of those products you can over think. The quality and freshness of the coffee, water and roast is more important than the coffee maker although I do know, of course, that people are passionate about their coffee makers. I like to drink coffee within 5 minutes of brewing otherwise will make a fresh pot.

Mine is kept hidden so the coolness factor of the machine is irrelevant.
If that were important, well, that's a new thread!

Yeah, I heat the milk in the micro . . . sometimes. That's still asking a lot of me in the early AM! :)

Thrift store. Programmable drip coffeemaker. I bet you will find a nice older one for $10.

I buy a lot of stuff in thrift stores. When I need to, and when I don't. Oftentimes, the older things are better made.

Mines a Cuisinart Grind and Brew with the thermal carafe, it was a bit over $100 because Elery got the thermal carafe instead of glass.

It's programmable and will even filter the water and grind the beans for me. I've used it daily for a couple of years and it's still working fine. The coffee comes out HOT and the thermal carafe will keep it hot for a couple of hours.

Unlike Bumblebeez, I'll warm up yesterday's coffee in the microwave if I want a cup later. (shrug)

I had a couple of coffee makers before. A Hamilton Beach lasted less than 6 months. Three Mr. Coffee machines worked fine (two at the office, one at home) but I kept breaking the glass carafes. The one that lasted the longest made it nearly four years and that was making two or three pots per day at the office, every day and year round.

I had one that had no pot, I liked that, but it didn't keep the coffee very hot.

And I'm also looking for a toaster. I don't use mine all that much but the fancy one Elery bought me already has two of the four slots that don't work, the handle won't stay down.

Annie

John, I agree, the old stuff is sometimes better. The office still has my 4 slice Hamilton Beach toaster, I left it there when I retired. I got it as a wedding gift in 1974 and it still worked fine but the slots were too thin to fit a bagel. Ten people in the office used it every day.

Elery bought me a new Hamilton Beach 4 slice and it's already broken, I think it's 3 years old but maybe 4. No one uses it except me, and Elery when he's here. Grrrr.

Annie

Ebay. Linky below. $24 for a four cup unit, including shipping. Lots more, I'm sure.

Here is a link that might be useful: ebay 'Mr. Coffee'

French press??? Fresh and hot everytime...

12 cup programmable Mr. Coffee $30 at BBB. Had it for years. Make at least a 12 c pot every day. Using Starbucks ground makes great, strong, decaf. Reheat in mw.

I make excellent, piping hot coffee lickety-split in the morning with an Oneida 4 cup percolator. Amazon doesn't show it any more, but the Farberware equivalent is $59.99.

In Costa Rica, coffee is always served with hot milk. Best coffee.

How about powdered milk? that will keep your coffee hot.

dcarch

Not always, dcarch. Ashley spent 10 days in Costa Rica with her high school Spanish class and toured Cafe Britt's coffee plantation. they gave her a cup of hot, black coffee. She's definitely a milk and sugar kind of girl, LOL, and didn't think she could drink it but she said it was the best coffee she'd ever tasted.

Did she bring some back? No, of course not.

Annie

I'm with Seagrass, buy an electric kettle and a french press. Steaming hot coffee in 5 minutes or so!

I do the French press/electric kettle thing too. And you can streamline the whole process by filling the kettle and putting the coffee in the press the night before. When you wake up, flick the switch on the kettle, should boil in about 3 minutes. Pour boiled water into press, wait 2 minutes, decant into cups. Make the toast while you're waiting :-)

Annie, I think Ashley was served American style coffee, no way a typical Costa Rican will serve coffee with cold milk.

Many, if not all, Euroupeans also serve coffee with hot milk.

dcarch

No, dcarch, not cold milk. No milk at all, it was just hot black coffee. She said it was delicious and tasted a little like chocolate.

Annie

We have a french press. I hate cleaning the thing. Right now we are using a cone filter over mugs. It is just too fussy for us to make one cup of coffee at a time. I even have an old glass carafe that uses a huge paper filter to make a whole bunch of coffee but I can't be bothered with all that. BF needs to make a big pot of coffee for his thermos for work. I would also like to fill my thermos on the days I'm on the road. The coffee at school is expensive and mediocre. I'm thinking like Annie that I would like the stainless steel carafe, since I tend to break things, although you can buy new glass carafes. Nowdays coffeee makers are built to wear out every couple of years. BF has gone through three of them recently. I had one that ground the coffee right before brewing it. Eventually the grinder motor wore out. BF says he had the best coffee of his life in a diner in Puerto Rico, it was local coffee. He has never been able to find anything like it since. Good coffee is hard to come by, just as any good agricultural product.

Hard to say if I could get something "good" used. For many years they have been making junky appliances. Probably one of my best bets would be an old percolater style one if I wanted something durable--all metal parts. Even the plastic they use nowdays is inferior and thin.

Back in 1992, we bought a Krups espresso machine. It continues to work great today. I brought it to the office when the price of a 20 oz coffee downstairs went to $2,50. I think something like that would be considered a throw-away today - eww, a twenty year old coffee maker - but I'm happy.

I think the zenith of home small kitchen appliances was the 1980s. Plastic was thick and strong, there was still a good deal of metal, switches were mechanical and firm, many models were still made in the US, Germany, or Japan, and harvest gold had been abandoned for black and white.

The only real advance since then, that is relevant to small appliances, is that processing power is very cheap. But for a coffee maker, who cares about fuzzy logic and internet controls?

I love my AeroPress. It's great for one, maybe two cups, but not so if you are making coffee for a party. It is wayyyyy easier to clean than a French press - the filter and grounds just pop out into my compost pail. Of course, you must have an electric kettle to boil the water (doesn't EVERYONE have an electric kettle?) - so much faster and safer than a stove-top kettle.

I have had this Hamilton Beach two way coffeemaker for several months and really love it. I like how you can make a whole pot or a single serving. The coffee it makes is really good, too. I usually don't like to make recommendations but this coffeemaker is the best one I've ever had (and I've had many).
Amy

Here is a link that might be useful: HB two way coffeemaker

I scored a vintage Imperial perculator at a rummage sale for under a dollar. Very lightly used, from the looks of it...maybe a couple of pots of coffee. Anyway, I was a happy camper for about three months--until it went belly-up.

So I replaced it with a programmable Mr Coffee, another rummage sale find. Didn't have the carafe so it was really cheap; I have a couple of spare carafes saved from past coffee makers. No problems with it for the last 18 months or so...we average about 9 pots of coffee a week.

I just dislike having to do the vinegar thing to clean it every so often but that's the nature of drip coffee makers.

DH has a Zojirushi and is happy with it. The difficulty he had was finding a coffeemaker that did well with small amounts. He said the coffee from his old 12-cup coffeemaker didn't taste as good because the water didn't percolate through the grounds right when it was just a small amount of grounds spread over a large area. Or something. I don't drink coffee so I can't say. lol. Anyway, the Zoji was more expensive than his old coffeemaker, but considering the amount of coffee he drinks and the improved taste, I think it was a good purchase. He had a 4-cup one from another mfr at one time but he says this one just works better. I'll link it below in case you are interested in smaller coffeemakers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Zojirushi coffeemaker

We looked at a few at Target this weekend. I really disliked all the plastic that the hot water runs through. Seems like it will pick up tastes and leach chemicals. I hate to buy a used one because these gizmos seem to me to have a useful life of about three to five years, so even if it is "almost new" lord knows how much life it has left in it and you can't return it if it dies on you. Actually the percolator kind interested us but we figure it will take a lot longer to make. At least that's what I seem to remember from the old days. Liked that it was all metal though. I remember that was how grandma made coffee, with an old two piece aluminum pot. That must have leached stuff into the coffee too!
Wish I liked the french press style coffee. I just can't get into it, it tastes gritty to me, even with the special grind for the french press. Plus I am so darn lazy I hate washing the thing with all the parts.

Well pink, I only pay fifty cents to a couple of dollars for used coffeemakers so being able to return it isn't even a thought. Twouldn't be worth the cost of the gasoline if I could remember where I bought it.

Corningware used to make percolators-my aunt loved hers-but you'll only find those 'used'...IF you can find one. I go to a lot of rummage sales & have for years. Have never seen a Corningware percolator at one.

DH is a Civil War re-enactor. They make boiled coffee in one of those enamelware pots. Nothing to break down, no chemicals to leach (except for who knows what that's in the water or was used to process the coffee or the container that the coffee came in) and the pot should last just about forever. I'm sure that the coffee tastes wonderful, with the smell of a campfire on a dewy and chilly morning...if you don't mind chewy coffee. :)

We like it strong and black - specialty vendor extra-dark French Roast in a Turkish #2 grind (one small level up from powder). Most vendors won't do a #1 or #2 grind because it clogs the burrs making the grinder overheat and eventually break down. None of the inexpensive commercial grinders even come close, so we buy it ground in small quantities and keep it in the freezer. What we buy is a lot stronger than Starbucks, which is not a coffee we care for.

Chemex bonded filters ($10/100) in a ceramic drip cone ($8/hardware store, just don't drop it). If we're drinking it right away I put the cone over a Bodum glass teapot which has just the right size opening on top. Otherwise it goes into a Zojirushi thermal carafe that holds 6-7 cups ($50). The Zojirushi is amazing; it keeps the coffee hot and very fresh for at least 5 hours.

The electric coffeemakers are pretty much 'set and forget'. It's a little easier. But the quality of the coffee IS different. We've tried a whole bunch of different types, but keep coming back to "the cone". For the type of coffee and grind we prefer, the Chemex-style drip works best for us.

I understand the Technivorm is the Way To Go electrically, but it's $280 and that buys a whole lot of Chemex filters!

jkom, I also have a Chemex and you're right, it makes some seriously good coffee. I'm not a morning person and I have to fuss with it, so I find that I don't use it often.

Annie

I think you should get an old school all-metal percolator, set it up the night before, plugged into a timer (like what you'd put your lights on, when leaving for a trip). You can wake up to freshly perking coffee, what better?

$40 Buy It Now price on eBay, vintage GE percolator, there's plenty of them.

I seem to remembr my mother's percolator taking a long time, but I doubt mine takes more than 4-5 minutes. I start the coffee and make breakfast. The coffee is done before I can slap together a simple meal. OTOH a stovetop percolator requires a bit of attention. In mine the coffee comes in contact with glass and stainless steel only.

Chemex, so THAT'S what it's called!! I have one too, inherited from my mom, along with the filters. Have never used it, she got it as a wedding present, I don't recall her ever using it! It's a beautiful thing and I might use it for company, but I know I would break it if I used it regularly.
Annie has it just about right, we are just plain lazy and we don't want to fuss much with making coffee in the morning before work. Weekends yes, but at 5:30 in the AM, no way! We want to load and forget about it. Right now we are using a cone filter and making one cup at a time and BF is in an almost open revolt against it. Another issue is BF and I drink different coffees. I have to drink the low acid stuff. So we need to make two pots in the AM. Perhaps I should just buy the Melitta large cone filter so BF can make his thermos for work and then I can do mine. I dunno, BF is very conservative and he just wants the old familiar cheapo plastic Mr. Coffee thing. I just hate them because overall I really hate plastic!
I did think about getting a percolator with a timer. But that wouldn't solve the "two coffees" dilemma. Plus, BF is pushing hard for the conventional solution. I dunno, if I don't act soon he will buy the 20 buck Black and Decker one on sale now at Target.

Found this great review online, it explains why all these coffee makers are carp. Heating elements are cheap. In my experience, that's why all these modern appliances are carp and wear out quickly. Same goes for crockpots, toasters, waffle makers, electric stoves and ovens, I could go on and on.

America's Test Kitchen Coffee Maker review

I don't make or drink coffee but I do remember what a chore it was to clean our family's percolating coffee pot filter mechanism. Keep that in mind because if you don't like cleaning the French press, you'll hate cleaning the perc filter.

I've had a Cuisinart drip machine for several years. Still going strong. It's similar to the one at the link except that it's only an 8 cup machine instead of a 12.

Big selling point for me: it drips into a thermal carafe. Keeps it plenty hot for an hour or two, and DW and I have usually consumed it all within 30 minutes. (Plus, you can bring the coffee to wherever you're consuming it: breakfast table, porch, bedroom, wherever--quite convenient)

I don't like coffeemakers with a hot plate; eventually it makes the coffee bitter. Far better to drip into a thermal carafe, IMHO. And even if it is not as hot as you want it after a couple of hours, the coffee hasn't been subjected to excessive heat. So a cup of two hour old coffee from a thermal carafe, microwaved a bit to the temp you want, will taste much better than a cup of two hour old coffee that's been sitting on a hot plate. From now on I'll never buy any coffee maker that has a hot plate.

Here is a link that might be useful: cuisinart coffee maker

You could get one of those K cup thingies. You don't have to buy the prefilled cups anymore. They make little cups that you can fill youself. Just about anything will make good coffee if the water is hot enough. The problem with the drip coffee makers is that they often don't make the water hot enough, especially as they age which results in flavorless, watery, underextracted coffee. The reason that I like the percolator is that the water won't move up the tube until it's hot enough. Freshly ground coffee, 200 F filtered water and you can't miss no matter what implement you use to combine the two.

Cleaning my percolator is just a simple rinse. Every so often I run baking soda or Dip It through the cycle. I meant to time it this morning, but I forgot. However I can say that it takes less time than an omelette and I am a pretty swift omelette maker. I guess that I'm kind of a percolator evangelist, but I did cycle through all of the options first and this choice has given me the best quality coffee with the least hassle.

Maybe your best solution would be cold drip coffee. My brother (who is also a coffee fiend) does this on the weekends so that they can just add some concentrate to hot water and go!

I used this process myself a few decades ago and it does indeed make very good coffee, especially for those who object to the bitterness of dark roast coffees.

Personally I dislike percolators; they "cook" the coffee too quickly when using dark roasts.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wiki on cold brew coffee concentrate

This has been a very interesting discussion and really helped me narrow my choices down. I had to really think about how BF and I would use the coffee maker, because that is what it really came down to. We both get up early and crabby and need to make a quick easy pot of coffee which we then pour into our thermos and take to work with us and also have a cup for breakfast. We drink different coffees because BF likes to try different brands and deals and I can only drink the low acid stuff. So I decided no use spending money on a thermal carafe because we won't be having the coffee sit around in the carafe. Let's just hope I don't break the glass one! I know the way I am in the morning and no matter how easy it was I know I would not wash the percolator, because I tend not to wash our french press, I am just too rushed. Maybe if there weren't unwashed dishes in the sink from the night before and I had extra time but that rarely happens!! All the coffee makers are plastic inside. So I decided to get a cheapo one that was on sale at Pennys when I was there buying sheets. It's programmable, has a see through water tank, you can interrupt for one cup, and most importantly, has a cone shaped coffee filter which I definately like better, since I have used both shapes. That was what it had going over the other cheapo models.
That's for BF's coffee. For myself I bought a new stainless steel kettle (I melted the last one) and a large Melitta cone shaped filter to make a whole pot. That way we can both make our coffee simultaneously and variably in the AM. For weekends we have our french press.
Melitta cone filter coffee maker

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooks 12 cup coffee maker